


Live or Die

by EssayOfThoughts



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Confrontations, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 18:16:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17288972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: All her council wants her back on the base, everyone she knows wants her safe away from the battle, away from her son, but Han had died trying to save their son, and she knows she cannot do less.





	Live or Die

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Only strength, only certainty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9053320) by [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts). 



> Kind of a precursor fic to [Only strength, only certainty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9053320).
> 
> Originally posted [Here](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/136523927289/original-post-here-bc-i-didnt-want-to-hijack).

All her council wants her back on the base, everyone she knows wants her safe away from the battle, away from her son, but Han had died trying to save their son, and she knows she cannot do less. Her council wants her away from where stray fire could kill the leader of the resistance, the icon people centre around, their great diplomat to what remains of the republic. Leia looks across the battlefield and knows that she must save her son or kill him.

When Kylo eventually tracks his mother down it is under orders. Snoke thinks he has been wavering - he has not,  _he has not_  - but he obeys his orders. He has taken his helmet off, because Han had asked it of him, and he thinks Leia might too, to know that it was him. He decides that, if he is to kill her, she should know it is indeed him.

He tracks his mother down. Sees the worrylines on her face that weren’t there before, her grey hairs, the way their eyes and mouth look sad, so sad, and he tries to make himself believe that it is grief for Han and not for him.

“Come back,” Leia offers, and it is soft and a promise, her hands outstretched. “You can come back, just turn from the Dark Side,  _please_.”

She doesn’t say his name, new or old.

“Come back,” she repeats. “Vader did, in his last moments, for Luke. A father for his child. Please,” she says, and somehow she does not sound as though she is pleading, “be a son to your mother.”

Kylo Ren looks at his mother, and decides. She is, he thinks, asking of his emotions. Of the Dark Side, of Sith. He drops his hands to his sides, runs his fingers over his lightsabre. He feels the wind chill against his face, the snow falling. He does not feel the blast that rips him open, but he feels Leia’s hands cradling his head and lifting him to her lap.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, and he feels her tears dropping onto his face. 

Leia knows that it was his life or hers. She knows that he would have killed her, she had felt it, that inexorable Force that whispered truths to her she did not want to know. She strokes her fingers through her son’s hair as he dies, and wishes it could have been otherwise.

 

* * *

 

In another universe he is dead by another's hand. In another universe he is dead at his own hand. In _another_ universe Kylo Ren chooses to become Ben again.

In another universe Kylo Ren throws away helmet and lightsabre and walks back to the rebel base in handcuffs, sits quietly to one side, answers what questions he is asked. Leia cannot quite look at him, and he cannot make himself blame her. They will never be close again, he knows, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to prove to her that he would never turn to the Dark Side again.

In another universe, he is dead.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments!


End file.
